A taxi driver who stole a portable speed camera installed on the roadside of Jeju Island and buried it in an orchard has been apprehended by the police.
According to the police, on the 24th, Taxi driver Mr. A, in his 50s, was arrested on charges of theft the previous day by the Seogwipo Police Station in Jeju.
Mr. A is accused of stealing a portable speed camera worth 25 million won (approx. $21,000) and camera auxiliary battery and tripod worth 4.5 million won (approx. $3,800) installed about 600 meters (approx. 0.37 miles) east of the Unam Bridge on the Jungsan-gan Seo Road in Seogwipo City, Jeju Island, between 7:39 pm and 9:26 pm on the 12th.
The Jeju Autonomous Police, which operates the portable speed camera, confirmed the camera was missing when they retrieved it the morning after the incident and reported it to the police.
Upon receiving the report, the police secured footage of a white K5 taxi lingering at the crime scene for 22 minutes through a surveillance camera.
After comparing the vehicle captured on surveillance footage and 122 white K5 taxis in the Jeju area, the police identified Mr. A as the suspect. They apprehended him at his residence in Seogwipo City on the 19th.
The police conducted an investigation on Mr. A, but he denied his crime, and the stolen speed camera was not found at his residence then, so Mr. A was eventually sent home.
Through mobile phone forensics, the police confirmed that Mr. A stayed at his younger sister’s orchard for about an hour around 7:19 a.m. On the 13th, the day after the crime. Based on this, the police focused on the possibility that Mr. A hid the camera in the orchard and conducted a concentrated search on the 21st.
As a result of the search, the police found traces of digging in the ground, dug up the ground themselves, found the portable camera, and seized it.
Afterward, Mr. A denied the charges, saying, “I don’t know why the camera was buried in my younger sister’s orchard, and I have never been to the orchard,” but he was arrested on the 22nd due to the risk of flight.
The police confirmed that Mr. A was driving at a speed of 100 km/h (approx. 62 mph) in an area where the speed limit was 80 km/h (approx. 50 mph), and they believe that he committed the crime out of resentment for the speed limit enforcement.
By. Choi Ran
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